Beyond stereotypes: Rupert Grey’s ‘Homage to Bangladesh’
Rupert Grey, a descendant of Charles Grey and best known professionally as a leading libel and copyright lawyer stood against this statement. “If Bangladesh is a basket case,” Grey tells The Daily Star, “then it is so in the best possible way.” For him, the term collapses under the sheer vitality of the country. A single square metre of a Bangladeshi street, he argues, holds more energy than entire neighbourhoods in London. Where life in England often unfolds in rigid routines, Bangladesh thrives in spontaneity—where a hanging lighter at a tea stall can become a moment of shared choreography.
25 January 2026, 12:24 PM
Books & Literature
FLASH FICTION / The rickshaw artist
24 January 2026, 01:52 AM
Books & Literature
FLASH FICTION / Pirouette of a phoenix
24 January 2026, 01:48 AM
Books & Literature
POETRY / Memories
24 January 2026, 01:36 AM
Books & Literature
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Lessons in Chemistry : A novel that reads you
22 January 2026, 15:54 PM
Books & Literature
EDITORIAL / Why read?
22 January 2026, 00:00 AM
Books & Literature
THE SHELF / 7 new books to look out for in 2026
22 January 2026, 00:00 AM
Books & Literature
EVENT REPORT / Md Ashanur Rahman receives the International Creative Arts Award 2025
19 January 2026, 17:38 PM
Books & Literature
NEWS REPORT / NSU DEML launches inaugural certificate course in creative writing
17 January 2026, 16:00 PM
Books & Literature
INTERVIEW / Reclaiming the unwritten: Kanika Gupta on colonialism, embodiment, and the art of remembering
Gupta shares her insights on reclaiming forgotten histories, reimagining myths, and connecting ancient narratives to contemporary ecological and social concerns.
22 November 2025, 11:51 AM
Books & Literature
REFLECTIONS / Moon, memory, manifesto: A personal, lyrical essay on Atrai
21 November 2025, 18:28 PM
Books & Literature
REFLECTIONS / The risk of becoming: Notes on translation and transformation
7 November 2025, 18:33 PM
Books & Literature
THE SHELF / 5 books on women’s everyday terror to read this Halloween: The horror that persists
31 October 2025, 13:45 PM
Books & Literature
THE SHELF / 8 books to read if you’re fascinated by the louvre heist
30 October 2025, 13:30 PM
Books & Literature
EVENT REPORT / Unveiling ‘The July Resolve': Stories of resilience & resistance
14 January 2026, 16:01 PM
Books & Literature
EVENT REPORT / Singing a 900-year-old song: Exploring Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam with Zeba Rasheed Chowdhury
3 January 2026, 10:26 AM
Books & Literature
EVENT REPORT / An eco-critical look at Sultan: Reading the manuscript of ‘Sultan Er Krishi Jiggasha’
With the aid of Duniyadari Archive, Pavel Partha’s soon-to-be-published book Sultan Er Krishi Jiggasha is a new addition, which looks at Sultan’s work from an eco-critical perspective.
8 November 2025, 11:43 AM
Books & Literature
EVENT REPORT / Zia Haider Rahman on his award-winning novel at NSU’s Colloquium series
7 November 2025, 11:48 AM
Books & Literature
NEWS REPORT / “Curious love letter”: Wole Soyinka responds after US cancels visa
He responded to the situation with grace, mentioning “I like people who have a sense of humour".
30 October 2025, 10:45 AM
Books & Literature
EVENT REPORT / Stepping into the uncanny world of Franz Kafka
26 October 2025, 11:55 AM
Books & Literature
THE SHELF / 6 books that I read at the end of last year… I hated 5 of them
You know that feeling when you crack open a new book and you’re convinced that this is the knight in all its paperback shining armour that will save you from your reading slump? Yeah.
7 January 2026, 18:00 PM
Books & Literature
TRIBUTE / Remembering Razia Khan Amin: The pen that forged a generation’s courage
28 December 2025, 12:19 PM
THE SHELF / 5 books to rescue you from brainrot
17 October 2025, 14:45 PM
6 books that bring Bangladesh to life for diaspora teens
10 October 2025, 19:11 PM
BOOK REVIEW: GRAPHIC NOVEL / The tragedy of ‘Demon Slayer’
10 October 2025, 14:30 PM
THE SHELF / 7 lyrical fantasy books: Where prose becomes poetry
7 October 2025, 11:14 AM
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / In which Arundhati gives it those ones
1 October 2025, 18:00 PM
FICTION / The truth factory
12 September 2025, 18:54 PM
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / The Indosphere and its discontents
10 September 2025, 18:00 PM
Essay / Sonnet of the riverbank: Remembering Al Mahmud, the poet
29 August 2025, 19:49 PM
Naeem Mohaiemen discusses ‘Midnight’s Third Child’ at ULAB and Bengal Institute
Naeem Mohaiemen called the book and its selections, which comprise fairly short essays and editorials on contemporary matters, “an argument for somehow recording all that seems ephemeral, so we can then look back and trace what was happening.”
26 May 2023, 00:00 AM
Anuradha Roy's book of longing and belonging
In Hindu mythology, the figure of the flaming, underwater horse has been repeatedly used to represent balance and harmony—a state in which both the elements of fire and water can coexist.
25 May 2023, 01:27 AM
‘Women, Gender and Development': Rocky ride along the evolutionary scale
Nazmunnessa Mahtab has written a quite all-encompassing book on women and gender issues.
25 May 2023, 00:00 AM
On weaving family, culture and place into a compelling story
Nilopar Uddin's debut novel, 'The Halfways' (HQ, 2022) takes place across London, Wales, New York, and Sylhet, and focuses on the Bangladeshi immigrant experience
25 May 2023, 00:00 AM
Reading ‘memory’ with Sehri Tales and Sister Library
The event, themed ‘Memory,’ took place on Sunday, May 21 at Dhanmondi’s DrikPath Bhaban, supported by Goethe-Institut Bangladesh and HerStory Foundation
24 May 2023, 10:42 AM
‘Time Shelter’ the first Bulgarian novel to win International Booker Prize
"The book is a profound work that deals with a very contemporary question: What happens to us when our memories disappear?", said judge Leila Slimani.
24 May 2023, 07:50 AM
Tidings of time
The eternal question could well be about what each generation passes on to the next and if the older one is at fault or the succeeding one is responsible for the outcome of its input.
22 May 2023, 15:00 PM
“It’s nice to be back—as opposed to not being back, which was also a possibility”: Salman Rushdie
Rushdie’s surprise appearance was the highlight of an eventful month for PEN, the literary and free expression organisation that has been in the middle—by choice and otherwise—of various conflicts.
22 May 2023, 13:00 PM
Ruskin Bond, 89, is still writing
The good old man of letters is much loved by his young and old readers. They sometimes post letters to him. He replies to some. In the end, he wants his readers to look at the brighter side of life.
21 May 2023, 13:00 PM
A new digital font brings back the letterpress typeface of old Bangla books
The font can be installed on and used with Kindle without breaking juktakkhor apart.
21 May 2023, 09:36 AM
Grief is something pure and stark in Han Kang’s ‘The White Book’
Han Kang explores the nature of her existence and it is all portrayed through objects and ideas unified by a single color: white.
19 May 2023, 04:00 AM
Sehri Tales in person—with Sister Library this time
An evening storytelling and writing around the "chimera that is memory", organized by Sister Library and Sehri Tales.
18 May 2023, 11:07 AM
Where to start reading Samaresh Majumdar
Dipabali’s character in Satkahon said aloud what was on every girl’s mind.
18 May 2023, 08:03 AM
When the message of Bangladesh’s liberation travelled on two wheels
Jamal Hasan and his three teammates decided to go on a goodwill mission for the fledgling state to thank the people of the world for supporting their Liberation War.
18 May 2023, 07:46 AM
Flesh in ruins
It is the disease that maintains the upper hand in the plot. A jarring voice of its own, the toxins spilling across the pages in bold, chaotic words.
18 May 2023, 07:33 AM
5 books exploring the found-family trope in fiction
A cast of strangers come together as a family based on their common experiences, situations, and relationships rather than their kinship or blood relations.
17 May 2023, 12:55 PM
Bigolas Dickolas and the power of a heartfelt ‘Read this NOW’
One random tweet by a fan account has sent a 2019 book flying off the shelves, climbing bestseller charts.
16 May 2023, 12:55 PM
Motherhood, martyrdom and the spirit of female resistance in 1971
Ekattorer Dinguli forces one to acknowledge the dire reality of ethnic and religious violence, and the harsh legacy of colonial oppression and divide that has ruptured the fabric of the South Asian subcontinent since 1947.
15 May 2023, 12:56 PM
A glimpse of the Istanbul we don’t know
Here was a woman who was but a dot amidst the throngs of people who watched the Bosphorus Bridge being opened in October 1973, as fireworks erupted over a Turkey that now seamed Asia to Europe.
15 May 2023, 08:55 AM
On mothers and reading
I wonder at how these frugal, accessible pleasures define her daily existence and get elated with the fact that reading takes up a significant space on the shelf
14 May 2023, 12:55 PM